Ballona Wetlands: Court Rejects Activist Group Appeal

With unusual speed, the California Court of Appeals for the 2nd District rejected activists’ appeal of a lower court ruling on the Ballona Wetlands Restoration Project. The December 27 decision came less than three weeks after three justices heard oral arguments in court earlier this month.

Their 54-page decision, downloadable from this link, was unanimous and unambiguous. The justices completely rejected every point made by Ballona Ecosystem Education Project (BEEP), which had appealed a 2023 decision of the L.A. Superior Court. The appellate decision was “unpublished”, which generally means the court felt the case raised no new issues of statewide importance.

In 2023, the Superior Court ruled that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), which has been planning to restore the Ballona Wetlands for more than a decade, needed to strengthen two technical areas of its 1242-page project Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Though a setback for CDFW and a coalition of mainstream environmental groups advocating restoration, the Superior Court ruling in fact validated the Department’s plan. This was a strategic failure for “anti-bulldozer” activist groups, including BEEP.

Above: The state plans to restore tidal wetlands in this 200-acre area where fill dirt was dumped from Marina Del Rey construction 75 years ago

CDFW plans to publish the corrected EIR in the coming new year. Notable in the Appeals Court decision is the very last sentence. “The Department is to recover its costs on appeal.”

Presumably, BEEP will now have to pay court costs and costs incurred by the California Department of Justice, which defended CDFW.

Enjoy your Ballona Wetlands!

References

Case No. B331193, California Court of Appeals, 2nd District. https://www4.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/B331193.PDF

Ballona Wetlands: Appeals Court Hears EIR Case. Marina Del Rey Patch. 12/17/2024 https://patch.com/california/marinadelrey/ballona-wetlands-appeals-court-hears-eir-case

California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Ballona Wetlands Restoration Project. Environmental Impact Report. https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=149710&inline

Marina Del Rey Patch. Ballona Wetlands: When the Winners are Really the Losers. May 25, 2023. https://patch.com/california/m...

Wetlands Restoration Principles. https://wetlandsrestoration.org/
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Author’s disclosure of affiliations:

Dr. David W. Kay served on the Board of Directors of the non-profit Friends of Ballona Wetlands from 2007 until 2015, and served as Board President in 2012-13. He presently serves on the Board of Ballona Discovery Park in Playa Vista. Dr. Kay is a staunch advocate for the state of California's plans to restore the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve.

From 1984 until 2022, Dr. Kay was employed by Southern California Edison Company, exclusively in the company's environmental services organizations. His many responsibilities included restoration of the 440-acre San Dieguito Wetlands near Del Mar. He retired in 2022 as Senior Manager for Major Project Environmental Management at the company, after 38 years of service.

Dr. Kay earned bachelor and masters degrees in biology and a doctorate in environmental science.

See Dr. Kay’s Patch Community Contributor profile here.